This is probably as good a thread as any (since there are a lot of people on this thread who know a lot about Fred) to ask the question that is haunting my thoughts....
First let me make it clear, I have not yet decided who to vote for, I can’t seem to find a candidate I can truly believe in. But as super Tuesday draws near day by day, I am going to have to zero in on the candidate who comes the closest to fitting my criteria, I guess.
I firmly believe that enacting the Fair Tax system would go further in restoring the power that the Federal Government has taken from us, back to the people where it belongs, than any other means we can come up with short of a civil war. Huck is pushing the Fair Tax, but he is just not conservative enough otherwise for me. My question is.... do any of you know why Fred won’t support the Fair Tax?
Fred has stated multiple times that he does NOT oppose the fair tax in principle, but that he does not believe that the fair tax is a viable alternative.
Fred's position is simple - the ONLY way the fair tax can work is if the 16th? (I may hav the # wrong) is REPEALED and the IRS abolished by Consititutional amendment. Otherwise, at some point, we will end up with both an income tax and the fair tax (which will be a VAT at that point).
Fred points out that getting the 16th repealed is close to if not completely impossible, and at best would take 5-10 years to accomplish. He believes that we should do something realistic that can be enacted sooner - a FLAT Tax.
I think Fred isn't tying himself to anyone's brand of tax reform. He's said he wants to streamline the process, and get rid of some of the onerous regulations. I'm glad he's not claiming any one way as best, until he spends the time studying the matter.
Huckabee can claim to support the Fair Tax plan all he wants, but it doesn't mean he'd have the political clout to get it done, even if he ever became President. The same goes with his idea of constitutional amendments to protect the unborn, and marriage. Sounds good to the Christian voter, but it ain't gonna happen in the real world of American politics, so actual practical alternatives need to be considered, as Fred has been saying.
Fred has said he has concerns whether or not the FairTax is feasible and would work at the 23% rate called for.
There are several reasons for that.
One is that the FairTax gives people the choice of where to spend their money and thereby legally avoid paying taxes. That is good from the perspective of giving people choices, but if you think about it, it is also bad. The FairTax REQUIRES that the same amount of money is spent on Retail goods and services HERE in the US as has been done in the past. If people change their spending habits, then the FairTax rate would need to be higher than 23%. Just as one example, the top 1% of income earners in the country earn 17% of all income, which means $2.2T out of a total of $14T is being spent by this 1%. This 1% of people could easily live anywhere in the world, still earn their money here in the US, and pay less than 23% in taxes. If they exercise their FairTax choice to spend money outside the country, then there won’t be enough money spent where the FairTax applies — and the rate would need to be 35% instead of 23%.
Another point is that the FairTax rolls SS/M taxes into itself, which forces people who currently are not involved in paying SS/M taxes — the rich, schoolteachers, those already retired, people earning cash tips — into paying SS/M taxes via the FairTax. That makes the SS/M system much more like a welfare program by expanding taxes to other than wages and breaking the connection between contributions and benefits. Fred has his own plan to save SS/M via private accounts and reducing the promised benefits. So the expansion of SS/M liabilities that the FairTax would entail is not something I would expect Fred to support.